2 Months to 3 Months

Towards the end of the second month and as your baby matures she will become much more aware of her surroundings. This is new and interesting to your baby so your baby might not be as eager to fall asleep whenever or wherever she is as she did in the first couple of weeks. This is the time when parents have to be more proactive about watching their baby's sleep cues and starting that sleep ritual before she becomes overtired.

Day Sleep:

Still, at this point, there is no particular pattern with napping especially in the second month. However, as you get closer to the third month the awareness or wakefulness becomes more apparent. This is the time when you want to start watching your baby for sleepy cues. A baby at this age after 45 minutes of being awake will start showing sleepy signs. This is when you need to watch the clock a bit. Your baby might start to: rub her eyes, move the head back and forth, and zone out. This point you want to start soothing your baby.

Soothing/Sleep Rituals don't need to be long. The purpose is to soothe your child into a sleepy state. You want to avoid soothing your baby always into a sleep state. The longer your soothing routine is the more likely your child will become overtired then fighting sleep. Soothing routines shouldn't have to be longer than 15-20 minutes to be affective.

At this point you want to put your child down regardless of whether your baby is totally awake, totally asleep, or somewhere in between. If the child is falling asleep at the right time, before becoming overtired, sleep will come easily. Once your baby is asleep, let her sleep. If your baby wakes up soon after you put her down, wait a bit before going in to assist. Give her the chance to go back to sleep, you might be pleasantly surprised.

Before the end of the day, your child can have anywhere from 4-6 naps a day depending on the lengths of the naps and what bedtime you have now established.

Night Sleep:

Night sleep especially towards the end of the 3rd month is becoming longer. You have established a fairly regular bedtime and your baby might have 2-4 feedings a night.